A few years back, authors and small presses could participate in a number of marketing programs at Amazon.com.

BUY X GET Y was one of my favorites. You could contact Amazon and request a link from your book to another book of similar appeal. It was not inexpensive, but it was a terrific program that exposed your book to readers interested in books similar to yours. Listmania was a free program that also linked similar books. There were FEATURED PAGES. A small press could purchase a page on Amazon that highlighted a series or group of books in a kind of “landing page”. There were a number of Amazon marketing programs like these and others that were slowly raised out of reach for small presses over the last 5 – 10 years.

Humor is difficult. And varied. It requires a certain ability that escapes a great many people who attempt it. Goode has the ability in spades.

Sometimes it is not the situations she finds herself in but the way she describes them. Or in the way the story derails in a totally fascinating but bizarre fashion and eventually winds back around to where she started, sort of, usually. AJ telling a story is like AJ taking a road trip from Battle Creek to Kalamazoo by way of Baghdad, Reykjavik, and Canberra. She will get you to Kalamazoo and you will have some great photos and a souvenir Tshirt of Alice Springs when you arrive.

In my progress reports I said it was like your BFF sitting at your kitchen table and letting it all roll out, without filters. Everything that “maturity” brings. (My friends and I agree that we are not getting older, we are getting more mature) Weight gain, menopause, sensible shoes, reentering the dating game, mature sex, speeding tickets, trying to master modern technology, social media, and my personal favorite, spicy food. And Stephen King in a red gown and crown.

In 19 conversations Goode is a brilliant combination of the Golden Girls, Lucy Ricardo, and the late Erma Bombeck rolled up into an unleashed, unfiltered, no-subject-is-taboo explosion of domestic and social disaster and triumph.

The only problem was that the book ended far too soon. Required reading for all my friends. Highly recommended for everybody else. Remember it’s on sale for $0.99 before the May 1 release.

57% and Goode just skewered Modern Love on social media. A crowned and gowned Stephen King is still lurking in the dark corners of my mind.

I have neglected to tell you that Fat, Fifty, and Menopausal is available for preorder at Amazon for $0.99 and available for purchase at $3.99 after May 1, 2016.

There really is a North American Menopause Society.

72% and Goode just told a fine story of her then husband and 40 acres of prime body burying land. I like the way she has written about her ex, she gives him respect and admiration and it says a great deal about both of them.

It began with a casual comment that led to a good idea that involved a minimal amount of planning and should have been easy to accomplish.

Unfortunately, as usually happens with my plans, it all headed south pretty much right out of the gate and then just snowballed straight to hell from there. – Fat, Fifty, and Menopausal

At 31% I have realized hat where Goode starts off and where she ends up are two vastly different places. Ladies and Gentlemen, I have found myself- only younger and with kids. I’m still not sure if she got her picture taken however I would really like to lose the mental image of Stephen King in a red, one shoulder, floor-length gown with crown and sash.

I haven’t had coffee and the cats want their breakfast but I’m just sittin’ here glued to the Further Adventures of A Goode Girl.

At Christmas I had a few guest blogs by authors I had met online and liked for any number of reasons. One of them is AJ Goode. This morning she sent me a request to read and review her upcoming book. Only two kinds of writers ask me to review their books- those that have never read my reviews and those that are crazy.

AJ is crazy. Crazy is good. Crazy good. Crazy Goode. Hah!

26% into Fat, Fifty, and Menopausal and the almost overwhelming ennui brought on by a stream of not as interesting as they sounded books has dissipated in the warm pleasure of reading the frank and funny outpourings of Everywoman. It’s like having your BFF sit down at your kitchen table, open her mouth and let it all roll out.

Seldom has a book spoken so loudly to me, I’m not reading it so much as hearing it. I want coffee and cookies, these conversations need both.

There are 19 chapters or, as I prefer, conversations. The conversation about Assholes Among Us is priceless, and Praying For Rain, this woman’s brain must have belonged to Lucy Ricardo.

Crazy quilts are unique and innovative quilts created from scraps of materials. My hope is for a world that uses all the scraps, rough cut diamonds and hidden treasures. I blog to make IPOC authors and their works more accessible.